“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” John 3:16
I am becoming more and more aware that those who do not know Christ are often embedded with worldviews that literally forbid belief in an Almighty and Only God.
I sadly do not have to go into a "place of ill repute" to sense that reality. It is all around me. I am finding people close to me that have no fear of God, even among friends that grew up in Christian homes. They never truly believed while under the subjection of their parents and, therefore, have rejected the truth of God’s Word in their adult years. Sadly, they don’t only reject it…they fight against it. They seek to draw others away from their Maker as well. It grieves my heart to be in their presence and hear them “think” out loud.
In the library the other day, checking email, I was not so much taken in by the conversations around me (libraries are genuinely quiet places), as I was with what was on the computers in front of me (in full view). There seems to be no shame in our society, or at least very little, as a rule! While sitting in Starbucks or standing in line at a bookstore I have heard strangers talk about God and His Word as if they were picking dinner choices…what they like and don’t like…without any regard to His being Supreme Authority—not even regarded as a deity requiring a minimal amount of respect. No, He is thought of as a “choice”! And He is discussed as one. And they don't like what He is offering, thank you very much. This lack of holy fear gives them the awful ability to carelessly cast His law and His love out the window like a piece of unwanted trash—or to carefully and cruelly mock His existence.
It grieves me to hear people ignorantly talk about the truth that will one day decide their destiny. Speaking philosophically, they believe themselves to be very intellectual—but it is their very pride that condemns them to death—“woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight...as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so shall their root be as rottenness...because they have cast away the law of the Lord of host, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 5:21, 24). “Professing themselves to be wise, they [become] fools” (Romans 1:22). They glory in their arrogant freedom to choose what they want or don't want to believe. But they are not freely choosing their own path. They are as dead men walking, “according to the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2)—completely bound to their lusts and fulfilling the desires of the flesh, as one would obey an oppressive master. They are slaves to their sin. And they are deceived to the uttermost.
Working in subsidized apartment complexes and public schools doing Good News Clubs I have also become more and more aware of the role parents play in educating their children in spiritual matters. Basically…they aren’t playing one. I hear it, I am exposed to it…I am saddened by it. We are several generations into a major lack of “the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) here in America, and many parents are either knowingly or ignorantly (both are inexcusable) instructing their children in unrighteousness. Turning a blind eye to unlawful behavior (either their child's actions or the behavior of those their children are exposed to on TV) does not make a parent naive...it makes them a teacher of wickedness. What is to become of them? There is so much filth taken in on a daily basis that confusion controls most of their daily decisions—even when they are completely unaware of it. Men and woman are so bound to the consequences of their own sin that they have no moral grounding to teach another what is right and wrong. This is a result of a Godless society!
Fear, pain, arrogance, pride, despair, anger, bitterness, extreme sadness…this is what I see when looking into their eyes. And what is welling up inside of me is a growing passion to be used more and more of God to reveal the risen Savior (the Lord who brings life and freedom to those bound in death) to the world around me—the world of coffee shops, libraries, and Wal-Marts—my world!
What is God calling you to do in “your world”?
Consider what He did for ours!
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” John 3:16
